How to Install Apps Directly Into Your SD card (No Root)

If you are crazy about apps and need all the coolest apps on your android device but there is one problem, your device has little internal memory space that you can barely install few of your favorite apps to app 2 sd card.

This problem is faced by most of Android users and there are some solution like either you can delete your existing apps to install new ones or set the install location of the apps to move apps to sd card or app2sd card.

How to Move Apps to SD card

To move an app to the SD card, open the Settings screen, tap Applications, and select Manage Applications. Select the app you want to move and tap the move apps to sd card button on its details screen.

How To Install Apps Onto Your SD Card

By default, Android apps install to the internal storage but you can set the SD card as your default install location. This trick allows you to move apps to sd card without rooting your Android device.

Recommended : Best Methods to Mirror Android Screen to PC or TV (No Root)
Here’s what you will need to install Android Apps to SD card by default. Android 2.2 or later, you need to use ADB or Android Debug Bridge, Utility included Google’s Android SDK.
1. Enable USB Debugging : To enable USB debugging, open the settings screen, tap applications, tick the option allow installation from unknown sources and select Development. Tap the USB Debugging checkbox to enable it.

This allows you to change the settings on your Android device from your computer.

2. Install the Android SDK : You’ll need to download and install Google’s Android SDK on your computer. If you don’t already have Oracle’s Java JDK installed on your computer, you have to download and install it from here.

Now connect your Android device to your computer with USB cable. Windows should locate the device and install the appropriate drivers automatically. If it doesn’t, you may have to download and install the appropriate drivers from your Android device’s manufacturer. Do not mount the device after connecting it – just plug it in.

3. Using ADB : The ADB utility is included in the Android SDK Platform-tools package, select the package and click the install button to download and install it.

Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to the android-sdkplatform-tools folder. On Windows, you’ll find this folder at C:Program Files (x86)Androidandroid-sdkplatform-tools by default. Check C:Program FilesAndroidandroid-sdkplatform-tools if you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows.

If you could read you would have been able to see that I had entered that command, but my problem was that my phone was not showing as connected somehow. Under Computer I see C:, D:, and Galaxy S4, but when I enter the command I get an error message saying that no device is connected.

Hello,
your step-by-step tutorial is great. And after some fixation (no äöü.. in installation folder name) and the right adb driver for my phone (lenovo a660 android 4.0.4) i got the sdk to work.
“adb devices” -> found phone;
“adb shell pm set-install-location 2” runs without any kind of message;

But nothing changed in my phones settings, i can’t neither change settings to SD-Card nor new apps are installed on SD-Card.
There are only 3 options in the settings: “safe on phone”, “safe internal memory” and “let phone decide”

Maybe someone can help me, because the internal memory of 2GB at my phone isn’t that much.

HI I run the adb devices and the set new install location just fine but then I get this error
C:\Users\JamesBond\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\platform-tools>adb shell pm set-install-location 2
Error: java.lang.SecurityException: Package android does not belong to 2000

After “adb devices” just type “adb shell” (enter) then type “su” (enter and accept on the phone display), This enables SuperUser. Now you can type “pm set-install-location 2” Verify the new destination with “pm get-install-location”

Thank you so much. I hadn’t rooted my phone yet. And in all honesty i had no understanding of ‘rooting’. But after i enquired for my knowledge on the subject in understood it. After rooting my Android device, i installed SuperSU (a superuser app from the Google Play Store). I typed ‘su’ and followed through the instructed process, as you rightly asked me to do initially; and it worked. So thank you.

This guy really needs to learn to use the hyphens when they are included in the command. There were a lot of hyphens I found out I had to put in as a result of this guide failing to add them where necessary.

caution, clicking move to sd in the app settings does not move app data to sd card. it only moves app cache and executable. a 1gb game like kingdom hearts unchained x will still reserve its 1gb share in internal mem. a root and sdk procedure is required to tell android os that the external sd card is a new app data location.

Stuck logo Samsung after the rooting and not able to get the downloading mode.Will also try apply update from Adb its showing device not connected.kindly suggest me how to recover my android os i think so some boot file damage.

This allows me to move most of my apps to my SD card, but now I can’t install small apps. Error:Insufficient storage available
I already tried clearing my cache, and I have 451 MB of internal storage remaining.
How do I fix this?